Vijay Merchant, whose birth centenary was (desultorily) observed last month, was the founder of one of the two great traditions of Indian cricket, the Bombay School of Batsmanship (spin bowling being the other). A correct and orthodox player, equally adept against slow and fast bowling, he had a magnificent record in England, where he was far and away the best player on the Indian tours of 1936 and 1946. With a first-class average second only to Bradman's, Merchant was the first in a long line of superb batsmen from the island city, a line that continues via Vijay Manjrekar and Dilip Sardesai through Sunil Gavaskar and Dilip Vengsarkar on to Sachin Tendulkar.

Cricket fans of younger generations know something of Merchant's achievements with the bat. But they are perhaps largely unaware of his exceptional qualities as a human being. He was a thorough-going patriot - so much so that he dropped out of the tour of England in 1932, since Mahatma Gandhi and many other freedom fighters were then in jail. He went four years later, only because the nationalist leaders were now out of prison and preparing to contest elections scheduled under the Government of India Act of 1935.

When the Indian cricket team toured England in 1946, discussions for the British withdrawal from the subcontinent were well advanced. However, the onset of independence was marred by bloody riots between Hindus and Muslims. On the sidelines of a Test match, the young cricket writer John Arlott asked Merchant whether in view of the ongoing sectarian violence, India really deserved independence. Should not the white man, he said, stay on to secure the peace? Merchant reminded his friend that the British had to undergo a civil war to obtain their own political liberties.

Arlott had grown up with the prejudices of a conventional British upbringing. Friendship with Merchant broadened his social and political horizons. When he accompanied an English team to South Africa some years later, Arlott was asked to fill out an immigration form which asked what his race was. The options he was supposed to choose from were "white, Indian, coloured, black". Rejecting them all, he instead wrote: "Human".

By the 1960s, Arlott was cricket's best known and most respected voice, successor to Neville Cardus as cricket correspondent of the Guardian, and featured commentator on BBC's Test Match Special. Using his stature and influence, Arlott played a key role in allowing Basil D'Oliveira to escape from apartheid South Africa and make his name and cricketing career in England. In an interview shortly before his death, Arlott told Mike Brearley that had it not been for those early encounters with Merchant, he may have never spoken out against racism in cricket and beyond.

Merchant was born into a prosperous family of factory owners. Yet he always lived simply, and helped cricketers down on their luck all through his life. When his Test team-mates Amar Singh and Sadashiv Shinde died young, Merchant raised money for their families.

Merchant's ability to transcend barriers of race and class extended to the more entrenched barrier of caste as well. Some years ago I became interested in the careers of two Dalit brothers, a bowler, Palwankar Baloo, and a batsman, Palwankar Vithal, who had shone brightly in the Bombay Quandrangular of the 1910s and 1920s, which, in those pre-Ranji Trophy and pre-Test days, was the premier tournament of Indian cricket. After many phone calls and some fruitless trips to the Palwankars listed in the Mumbai telephone directory, I was finally able to locate Vithal's son, KV Palwankar, who then lived in the back of an old building in Dadar.

In an interview shortly before his death, John Arlott told Mike Brearley that had it not been for those early encounters with Merchant, he may have never spoken out against racism in cricket and beyond

On my first trip, Palwankar gave me a copy of his father's autobiography, in Marathi. A friend translated the book for me - the whole book, including a foreword written by Merchant. There the first great Indian batsman wrote of how, as a young boy, his hero and role model was Palwankar Vithal. Here, in part, is what Merchant wrote: "'Vithal': a slim, alert personality with that well-known green tweed hat on his head and a gracefully held bat in his hand that would swing easily when he reached the wicket… From thousands of cricket lovers there would come the spontaneous cry: 'there comes Vithal'.

"'Vithal': the moment one heard the name… spectators would visualise all the grace and charm of Indian batsmanship…. With supple wrists, keen vision, perfect judgement of flight and agile footwork, Vithal had mastered the art of [batting]. He used to play his strokes with ease whether in front of the wicket or behind it. But one superb stroke of his that I cannot forget is the cover drive. Nowadays a lot of effort and power goes into this stroke because of the off-side cordon. But due to his timing Vithal used to score more runs on this side of the wicket, effortlessly, through perfect coordination of wrist and leg movements…. He used to score fast because of his art of placing the balls in the gap."

This quote and the man's own superb record in the Quadrangular suggest that a case can, perhaps should, be made that it was Palwankar Vithal who is the unacknowledged founder of the Bombay School of Batsmanship. At any rate, the acknowledged founder venerated him, so much so that after Vithal retired from cricket with no savings to speak of, Merchant got him a job in the textile mill that his family owned.

On my second or third visit to KV Palwankar, he pulled out a letter that Merchant had written to him. After Vithal died, his son wrote to the industrialist to thank him for his moral and material help. Merchant wrote back that "all we did for your good father, the late Mr P Vithal, was out of tremendous respect for him, both as a cricketer and as a man. Very few of his generation, with the handicap that he suffered from, would have risen to such heights but for great determination and outstanding talent".

No city in the world, not even Sydney, has produced as many great batsmen as Bombay has. In a line that extends back almost a century, three names stand out - those of Merchant, Gavaskar, and Tendulkar. All were, in their time, the best batsmen in their city, their country, and the world.

Connoisseurs of technique and method can spend hours, days, weeks, discussing their respective merits - Merchant's ability on bad wickets versus Gavaskar's colossal powers of concentration versus Tendulkar's dazzling and often devastating range of strokes. But if the conversation turns, even briefly, from cricket to character, there can only be one winner. Merchant may or may not have been the founder of the Bombay School of Batsmanship. He may or may not have been the best all-round batsman produced by Bombay. He was, however, something more distinctive and arguably even greater - namely the most politically aware, and socially conscious, cricketer ever to play for Bombay, or for India.

Historian and cricket writer Ramachandra Guha is the author of A Corner of A Foreign Field and Wickets in the East among other books

(Cont) Soon thereafter, Merchant was embroiled in a public dispute that would change Bombay's cricket landscape & power-base forever. As President of the Cricket Club of India, owners of the storied Brabourne Stadium, he refused to allot extra seats to the Bombay Cricket Association for Test matches. A bitter power struggle ensued with BCA Secretary SK Wankhede, a politician in real life, who threatened to build a new stadium as CCI even dared BCA to do so. The end result: Wankhede Stadium was quickly built & commissioned for big-time cricket. The rest is history. It's become the city's main cricket venue & centre of action. Ironically, Wankhede Stadium now houses the Vijay Merchant Stand, just one among several, including two other famous ones named after Sunil Gavaskar & Sachin Tendulkar. Perhaps, the great "founder of the Bombay School of Batsmanship" deserves to be enshrined in a more distinctive way for his unique "socially conscious" contributions to Indian and Bombay cricket.

POSTED BY
jay57870
on | November 29, 2011, 15:36 GMT

Cricket and politics often go hand in hand. While the sporting game is all about outscoring the other team, the political game is often about settling scores. The "most politically aware" Merchant could play the other game too. His animosity toward Tiger Pataudi is well known. It was "personal" (according to Pataudi), with their unsavoury relationship boiling over into disagreements over player selection. As chairman of selectors, Merchant wielded a crafty power-play - at an opportune time when Tiger's fortunes were down (in 1970) - to depose him from captaincy. Recall those were turbulent times for royalty, having been stripped of privy purses & princely privileges by Indira Gandhi's sweeping changes. Meanwhile, Team India under new captain Ajit Wadekar went on to achieve landmark series' wins in the West Indies and England. It was a tipping point in Indian cricket. (TBC)

POSTED BY
pa99
on | November 28, 2011, 1:52 GMT

Merchant & Dicky Rutnagar on radio - match made in Heaven - second only to the incomparable John Arlott.

sitting next to my parent's National Ecko radio, volume turned down low, I still remember Merchant's finishing by-line "over to you, Dicky" .

had a run-in with both Patuadi & Engineer.

Pervez

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 21:39 GMT

Merchant yes,Gavaskar yes, Tendulkar NO

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 19:36 GMT

Very much loved reading about the great Vijay Merchant, one of the earliest bricklayer of the foundation of today's modern Indian Cricket

POSTED BY
hhillbumper
on | November 27, 2011, 18:17 GMT

This is one serious writer and first opened my eyes to Indian Cricket.As for best Batsman Gavaskar,Merchant and long way last Tendulkar.

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 17:48 GMT

Merchant is still my hero the best late cutter in the game world over very shrewd captain and the best discovere of talent cricketers. I(t was Merchant who found Gavaskar the best batsman of his time.

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 5:06 GMT

We never saw him play (even old movies) so inappropriate to comment on his batting. Like most Parsis, he also saw life in black and white and never in shades of gray. If I recollect, his daughter married a south Indian (her dance teacher) and was probably ostracised for sometime. We have all heard the Pataudi version of his relationship with VM but I have not read the other side of the story. For a while, I used to listen to his radio show on sunday in Mumbai.

POSTED BY
IlMagnifico
on | November 27, 2011, 4:13 GMT

Merhant cwrote a book about cricket. A little 50-pager in English. It was translated in various Indian languages by the National Book Trust and sold at for peanuts...

I begged my parents to buy a copy in a local language at a book fair at my school. I was mesmerized by the explanation of the sport. I was a street-cricketer till then. It hooked me to the classical side of the game. Now I play club cricket in a country on the opposite side of the Earth and may not ever see my name in the "official" cricinfo list ever, but I wonder, I wonder immensely, as to how many kids in India were touched by Merchant's little book (and NBT's generousness), and how many picked up a bat, a cricket ball and made up their mind to be a *good* classical batsman?! How many young boys found a dream, a destination because of that book Merchant wrote?..

How many Dravids, Laxmans, Tendulkars and Kapil Dev's do we have to thank Mr. Merchant for?

Thank you, Mr. Merchant for ALL you did on the field and off it.

POSTED BY
Kemcho
on | November 27, 2011, 3:44 GMT

An excellent article by an author who knows his subject very well. As a youngster growing up in India in the 70s and 80s I remeber listening to "Cricket with Vijay merchant" on vividh Bharati every sunday where Mr Merchant spoke on cricket. I used to write to him regularly as then and he responded to each and every letter of mine and I still have all those letters that he wrote to me.

POSTED BY
jay57870
on | November 29, 2011, 15:45 GMT

(Cont) Soon thereafter, Merchant was embroiled in a public dispute that would change Bombay's cricket landscape & power-base forever. As President of the Cricket Club of India, owners of the storied Brabourne Stadium, he refused to allot extra seats to the Bombay Cricket Association for Test matches. A bitter power struggle ensued with BCA Secretary SK Wankhede, a politician in real life, who threatened to build a new stadium as CCI even dared BCA to do so. The end result: Wankhede Stadium was quickly built & commissioned for big-time cricket. The rest is history. It's become the city's main cricket venue & centre of action. Ironically, Wankhede Stadium now houses the Vijay Merchant Stand, just one among several, including two other famous ones named after Sunil Gavaskar & Sachin Tendulkar. Perhaps, the great "founder of the Bombay School of Batsmanship" deserves to be enshrined in a more distinctive way for his unique "socially conscious" contributions to Indian and Bombay cricket.

POSTED BY
jay57870
on | November 29, 2011, 15:36 GMT

Cricket and politics often go hand in hand. While the sporting game is all about outscoring the other team, the political game is often about settling scores. The "most politically aware" Merchant could play the other game too. His animosity toward Tiger Pataudi is well known. It was "personal" (according to Pataudi), with their unsavoury relationship boiling over into disagreements over player selection. As chairman of selectors, Merchant wielded a crafty power-play - at an opportune time when Tiger's fortunes were down (in 1970) - to depose him from captaincy. Recall those were turbulent times for royalty, having been stripped of privy purses & princely privileges by Indira Gandhi's sweeping changes. Meanwhile, Team India under new captain Ajit Wadekar went on to achieve landmark series' wins in the West Indies and England. It was a tipping point in Indian cricket. (TBC)

POSTED BY
pa99
on | November 28, 2011, 1:52 GMT

Merchant & Dicky Rutnagar on radio - match made in Heaven - second only to the incomparable John Arlott.

sitting next to my parent's National Ecko radio, volume turned down low, I still remember Merchant's finishing by-line "over to you, Dicky" .

had a run-in with both Patuadi & Engineer.

Pervez

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 21:39 GMT

Merchant yes,Gavaskar yes, Tendulkar NO

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 19:36 GMT

Very much loved reading about the great Vijay Merchant, one of the earliest bricklayer of the foundation of today's modern Indian Cricket

POSTED BY
hhillbumper
on | November 27, 2011, 18:17 GMT

This is one serious writer and first opened my eyes to Indian Cricket.As for best Batsman Gavaskar,Merchant and long way last Tendulkar.

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 17:48 GMT

Merchant is still my hero the best late cutter in the game world over very shrewd captain and the best discovere of talent cricketers. I(t was Merchant who found Gavaskar the best batsman of his time.

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 5:06 GMT

We never saw him play (even old movies) so inappropriate to comment on his batting. Like most Parsis, he also saw life in black and white and never in shades of gray. If I recollect, his daughter married a south Indian (her dance teacher) and was probably ostracised for sometime. We have all heard the Pataudi version of his relationship with VM but I have not read the other side of the story. For a while, I used to listen to his radio show on sunday in Mumbai.

POSTED BY
IlMagnifico
on | November 27, 2011, 4:13 GMT

Merhant cwrote a book about cricket. A little 50-pager in English. It was translated in various Indian languages by the National Book Trust and sold at for peanuts...

I begged my parents to buy a copy in a local language at a book fair at my school. I was mesmerized by the explanation of the sport. I was a street-cricketer till then. It hooked me to the classical side of the game. Now I play club cricket in a country on the opposite side of the Earth and may not ever see my name in the "official" cricinfo list ever, but I wonder, I wonder immensely, as to how many kids in India were touched by Merchant's little book (and NBT's generousness), and how many picked up a bat, a cricket ball and made up their mind to be a *good* classical batsman?! How many young boys found a dream, a destination because of that book Merchant wrote?..

How many Dravids, Laxmans, Tendulkars and Kapil Dev's do we have to thank Mr. Merchant for?

Thank you, Mr. Merchant for ALL you did on the field and off it.

POSTED BY
Kemcho
on | November 27, 2011, 3:44 GMT

An excellent article by an author who knows his subject very well. As a youngster growing up in India in the 70s and 80s I remeber listening to "Cricket with Vijay merchant" on vividh Bharati every sunday where Mr Merchant spoke on cricket. I used to write to him regularly as then and he responded to each and every letter of mine and I still have all those letters that he wrote to me.

POSTED BY
sushantsingh
on | November 27, 2011, 0:26 GMT

I only remember him for one reason, he sacked Nawab of Pataudi from captaincy in 1971 because of his personal reason rather than any cricketing one.

POSTED BY
on | November 27, 2011, 0:20 GMT

Thanks for the article drawing attention to a great man - more please
I'm not too sure Mumbai has produced more great batsmen than any other city in the world - there are other cities who have produced many great cricketers
Perhaps, Ramachandra Guha or someone else could a series on the places that continue to produce great cricketers - an obvious place in Australia would be Wagga Wagga (A country town in the South West of New South Wales, Australia) that has produced some great test cricketers plus an inordinate amount of world class sportsmen and women)

POSTED BY
bouncer3459
on | November 26, 2011, 16:44 GMT

I dont know how good he may be but for sure he would be better than the truckload of flat track bullies that India now has in name of "Iconic Batsmen".

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 12:50 GMT

Brought back memories of listening on Radio cricket with Vijay merchant....I have read about various charities he was involved in......good writing thanks

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 12:23 GMT

Lead a life with such simplicity make everyone to adopt to the situation as followed & practised by Late Vijay Merchant.Even out of Cricket field,His fame spread due to his nobility with humility.

POSTED BY
Y2SJ
on | November 26, 2011, 12:22 GMT

He was a Great man and a great player

POSTED BY
cricsom5667
on | November 26, 2011, 11:33 GMT

Fantastic article Mr.Guha ! You are a great read - cricket or otherwise.
Mr. Shahabudeen Sajin - IMHO, there is still a debate in quite a few cricket lovers minds as to who is a greater bat - Sunny or Sachin - Sachin's monumental records not withstanding. And I am not sure that there will be a clear cut answer to that - the factors being helmet (sunny used one at the fag end of his career), uncovered wickets (for Sunny) and the LBW rule (against Sunny). Incidentally, I have watched both of them bat and IMHO, Sunny edges it on technical solidity.

POSTED BY
sapthagiri_186
on | November 26, 2011, 10:41 GMT

The best article of the recent times...
Hail Merchant..

POSTED BY
InsideHedge
on | November 26, 2011, 4:53 GMT

Terrific article. It's great to read and learn more about this great batsman from a true cricket historian.

POSTED BY
Ronsars
on | November 26, 2011, 4:16 GMT

Well written article sir...For people like me born in late 80s or later who never could see him bat were always told he was a class batsman but this is other side of him potrayed well....

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 3:30 GMT

I proud to be an indian ....

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 3:30 GMT

One of the great works till date from ramchandra guha excellent article.

POSTED BY
ABHIJATJOSHI
on | November 26, 2011, 3:20 GMT

Thank you, Mr. Guha. I do not know if Mr. Merchant was our greatest ever batsman. But you certainly are our greatest ever cricket writer/historian. No less than the great CLR James. Corner of a Foreign Field that you wrote and The Picador Book of Cricket that you edited are the twin gems in my cricket library that have given me as much pleasure as seeing the batting of Viv Richards. Play on, master...

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 2:58 GMT

Nice article, great man. A small point though - there is no debate as to who the best bat from Mumbai is either.

No featured comments at the moment.

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 2:58 GMT

Nice article, great man. A small point though - there is no debate as to who the best bat from Mumbai is either.

POSTED BY
ABHIJATJOSHI
on | November 26, 2011, 3:20 GMT

Thank you, Mr. Guha. I do not know if Mr. Merchant was our greatest ever batsman. But you certainly are our greatest ever cricket writer/historian. No less than the great CLR James. Corner of a Foreign Field that you wrote and The Picador Book of Cricket that you edited are the twin gems in my cricket library that have given me as much pleasure as seeing the batting of Viv Richards. Play on, master...

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 3:30 GMT

One of the great works till date from ramchandra guha excellent article.

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 3:30 GMT

I proud to be an indian ....

POSTED BY
Ronsars
on | November 26, 2011, 4:16 GMT

Well written article sir...For people like me born in late 80s or later who never could see him bat were always told he was a class batsman but this is other side of him potrayed well....

POSTED BY
InsideHedge
on | November 26, 2011, 4:53 GMT

Terrific article. It's great to read and learn more about this great batsman from a true cricket historian.

POSTED BY
sapthagiri_186
on | November 26, 2011, 10:41 GMT

The best article of the recent times...
Hail Merchant..

POSTED BY
cricsom5667
on | November 26, 2011, 11:33 GMT

Fantastic article Mr.Guha ! You are a great read - cricket or otherwise.
Mr. Shahabudeen Sajin - IMHO, there is still a debate in quite a few cricket lovers minds as to who is a greater bat - Sunny or Sachin - Sachin's monumental records not withstanding. And I am not sure that there will be a clear cut answer to that - the factors being helmet (sunny used one at the fag end of his career), uncovered wickets (for Sunny) and the LBW rule (against Sunny). Incidentally, I have watched both of them bat and IMHO, Sunny edges it on technical solidity.

POSTED BY
Y2SJ
on | November 26, 2011, 12:22 GMT

He was a Great man and a great player

POSTED BY
on | November 26, 2011, 12:23 GMT

Lead a life with such simplicity make everyone to adopt to the situation as followed & practised by Late Vijay Merchant.Even out of Cricket field,His fame spread due to his nobility with humility.